Thursday, October 25, 2012

Martial Arts Forms Application- Static to Free

I was looking at some online martial arts boards earlier and
a conversation about forms application caught my eye. For those of you that don’t
know what a martial arts form is, a form is a prearranged set of techniques practiced
against an imaginary opponent. Below is a basic form practiced in Choy Lay Fut.

The originally poster
had a complaint that he was training in china and never taught the applications
to the forms. His response was to characterize all the martial arts training in
china as lacking combat effectiveness and to be oriented towards performance. I’ve
heard this comment many times and after having trained and witnessed training
in china I can see his reasoning. What really was interesting to me though was
the counter argument that was presented by others posting on the topic. The
most interesting was “I learned this form from Sifu x in china and he showed me
the applications to it”. The reason I find this interesting is because it seems
that in general people believe if they are shown a specific application to a
movement in the form that that form has now become functional for combat. I
have seen this reasoning over and over again. The truth is that if I take a
martial arts form that I teach and pull out an application show it to a student
once or even several times they will never be able to apply it in a fighting
situation. While you do need to be taught what the techniques are for, if you
wish to apply a technique in a fighting situation, that technique needs to be
trained in a progressive manner.

Training Progression

The following is the training progression we follow at the
Hung Sing Martial Arts Association. I have personally found this progression to
be the simplest, most efficient way to take a technique from a form to applying
it in a free sparring or fighting situation.

1.Static Drills.

The first step in this progression in to
choose a technique or combination of techniques that you wish to use. These can
either be extracted from a form or they can be isolated singular techniques as
well as combinations of your own design. You then take chosen techniques and
practice them solo, on various training apparatus and with a cooperating partner.
It is important that when training with a partner you receive feedback from
your partner to determine whether or not you are performing the techniques
correctly.

2.Live Drills

The next in step is to take the same
techniques into a form of live drilling. Live drilling is a type of training in
which you trade the technique with a partner in a more spontaneous manner. For instance
if you are training a jab, you will throw the jab at you partner he will
defend. Next he will return the jab and you will defend. It is important to
note that what makes this drill live is plenty of movement simulating a
sparring environment and a focus on breaking the rhythm of the exercise. During
this phase of training you can get a feel for the abstract aspects of using the
technique such as distancing in relation to the opponent, timing, set up,
recovery after execution etc.

3.Limited sparring

Limited sparring is when you isolated a
single technique of a set of techniques and apply them freely. The value of
this exercise is that it allows you to try new techniques in sparring without
being overwhelmed by the variety of techniques used in free sparring. An example
of limited sparring(only training chop choi, cross and lam choi) can be found below.

4.Free Sparring

Eventually as techniques are worked out in
the previous 3 steps they can be then added into free sparring. in this video you can see my kungfu brother "Gil" (with the shirt on) applying the same techniques(chop,cross, lam) he trained in the limited sparring session above in a free sparring session with a practitioner of another martial arts system.

Training against a resisting opponent

“I train my techniques against a resisting opponent”, is a
common phrase on martial arts message boards. Often the people who say this are
making the argument that any form of static drilling is not of value because it
does not realistically simulate a real fight. They advocate nothing less than
free sparring prepares you for combat. While static drilling alone is not
enough in order to sufficiently train a person to use a technique in combat it
is a very important step. The techniques and concepts found in the Choy Lay Fut
system are based on sound scientific principles. That said, many of them go
against a person’s natural instincts. A good example is in the use of the Chuen
Kiu. When a punch is thrown at the average person their first instinct is to
turn or back away. In order to make the
Chuen Kiu effective you step into the punch which is contrary to the natural
instincts of a trained person. Without the static drilling of this technique as
well as the increase in pressure found at each step of training this technique,
or many others, can never be acquired.

www.HungSingChoyLayFut.com

Sifu Chris Childs is a 6th generation instructor of Choy Lay Fut Kung Fu under Grand Master Sam Ng. Sifu Childs has practiced the Choy Lay Fut method for over 10 years and in that time has placed 1st in several national and international martial arts tournaments and has participated in hundreds of martial arts demonstrations throughout the world. Sifu Childs was certified as an instructor of the Choy Lay Fut method in 2005 by the Ng Family Chinese Martial Arts Association and received another instructor certification in 2013 by the Chan Heung Choy Lay Fut Founder Association of Hong Kong. Sifu Childs has dedicated himself to the promotion and dissemination of the Choy Lay Fut method. With that goal in mind he has authored several articles for Kung Fu Taichi magazine, taught seminars throughout the united states, published numerous videos displaying and teaching Choy Lay Fut and also continues to teach students though his own martial arts school, the Hung Sing Martial Arts Association.